Ukrainian Defense Forces launched another strike on russian oil and gas processing facilities on the night of February 3rd, 2025, effectively expanding the geography of long-range aerial attacks.
The targets were the Volgogradneftepererabotka oil refinery in Volgograd, which belongs to Lukoil and suffered from Ukrainian explosive drones previously, as well as a gas processing plant in the Astrakhan Region, attacked for the first time.
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Based on local reports, the effectiveness of the assault was ensured by the number and concentration of drones involved. The Defense Ministry of russia declared 70 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles shot down overnight without specifying how many were launched overall. Also, 25 were intercepted over the Volgograd Region in particular, and 7 over the Astrakhan Region.
As per official reports, the fires seen in many videos published by users online is the result of "debris falling" onto critical infrastructure facilities.
The first target, Volgogradneftepererabotka, has a design capacity of processing 14.5 million tons of oil annually, making it one of the largest in the russian federation (5th or 6th place). This incident marks the second consecutive attack on the plant in the last 3 days, after the earlier strike on January 31st. Footage filmed by locals shows the damage to the refinery, and local authorities confirmed that a fire broke out at the facility.
Meanwhile, NASA's fire monitoring service indicates that the key target, the fractionating column, remained unharmed this time.
The same night, Ukrainian drones reached the Astrakhan Gas Processing Plant owned by Gazprom, local authorities also confirmed the fire outbreak and evacuated the plant workers. The videos from the scene say for themselves:
This plant is also one of the largest in russia processing about 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 3.5 million tons of gas condensate per year. Local channels report damage to the primary gas condensate treatment unit.
Read more: Ukrainian Forces Intercepted Dozens of russian Targets, but Strikes Still Caused Destruction
